The present invention relates to an electronic device such as an electronic cash register which processes data pertaining to a merchandise item purchased as part of a checkout operation and more particularly relates to a method for prompting the cleaning of a magnetic disk drive transducer head associated with a device such as an electronic cash register.
Floppy disk memories have been used for several years for memory devices for many computer systems. In recent years, the use of floppy disk memory devices in Point of Sale (POS) terminal systems has increased. Due to the environment in which the POS terminals are used, it has been found that one of the reasons for the failure of the disk drive units to perform their assigned tasks is the failure by operators or maintenance personnel to clean the read/write transducer heads of the drive unit. It has also been found that no information is generated as part of a terminal operation indicating whether or not the read/write transducer heads have been cleaned or how much operating time has elapsed since the last head clean operation, which information is needed by the serviceman for servicing the drive unit.
It is therefore a principal object of this invention to provide a method for indicating when the read/write transducer heads of a disk drive unit are required to be cleaned.
It is another object of this invention to provide a method for generating a record listing the number of times that the read/write heads of a disk drive unit have been cleaned and the time interval since the last head cleaning operation.